spec_evofandomcom-20200214-history
Mars (The Sea of Stars)
Life on Mars was confirmed in 2052. The life was mainly microbes similar to psychrophiles here on Earth, but fossils show that as recent as a billion years ago there was a large amount of diversity, although not as much as Earth was in the early twenty-first century. Atmosphere Mars started off as a planet with a thick carbon dioxide and oxygen atmosphere; however, as time went on, solar wind, the surface of the planet, and low gravity slowly ebbed away at the air. The carbon dioxide itself decomposed into carbon monoxide and water. Also, the iron and water on the surface combined to form rust. The carbon monoxide and hydrogen rose in the atmosphere and became an easy target for the solar wind. This happened over billions of years, and the atmosphere was slowly reduced into nothing a few hundred million years before now. Geology As the Martian surface cooled down, volcanoes, erupted that filled the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. The ground was also of a different material: silicates and metals, with a much higher percentage of metal content than earth. Over the eons, the Northern Sea slowly shrank as the atmosphere was scattered to the four solar winds and the sea sank into the surface. Also, any evaporation that happened from the sea was quickly broken apart into oxygen and hydrogen ions from the solar wind. Evolution Primary Eon (4.5-4.0 Gya) Mars is just forming and life has not begun yet. Hundreds of meteors rain down, churning the planet into lava. Secondary Eon (4.0-3.0 Gya) Early in Mars' history, life proliferated above ground. The first bacteria consisted of chemoautotrophs. The bacteria lived in macroscopic colonies, where the bacteria relied on methane from the mantle to exist. Tertiary Eon (3.0-1.0 Gya) The most similar analogue of the largest life now is a cross between a small tree and a tube worm. The appearance is the same, but that is where the similarities end. Martian Trees, as they are called, have a combination of heterotrophic and autotrophic tendencies. They photosynthesize, and they eat meat. These lived on the equator because the equator would collect enough energy to supply the energy for the martian tree. A more common organism is the tiny Obsidian Crab. This is the organism that martian trees usually eat. The Black Crab crawls back and forth across the Martian Desert in constant search of algae and martian trees. From what scientists could tell from the fossil record, they live independently, not large enough to do any serious damage to the food supply they have. Olympus Mons erupted at the end of this eon, releasing the energy of over five million megatons of TNT and causing Mars to go into another Ice Age due to the enormous amounts of tephra in the atmosphere. Due to the sudden climate change, many of the multicellular organisms that were on the surface had two choices: go underground or go extinct. Quaternary Eon (1.0- Present) Although Olympus erupted several times before with a VEI (Volcanic Explosivity Index) of four through six, after the massive destruction Olympus Mons created, everything on the surface around it was incinerated and/or buried under dozens of meters of rusty sand. However, it had much graver consequences for the future of life on that planet. The gargantuan eruption, having a VEI of about eight, robbed Mars of much of its interior heat. What this means is that the mantle cooled so much so that the life above ground, coupled with the fact that the atmosphere was disappearing, was impossible. Even subsurface life, with the planet now dead, was dwindling. Speculations on Evolutionary Tracts It is likely that megafauna life did not exist because there is too little available energy from existing organisms to have a higher trophic level than first consumer. Category:The Sea of Stars